Microsoft Backs Away Slowly from the Grid

Microsoft’s concern with the reliability of the electric grid is driving the company to seek alternate options to power its data centers. The company recently said it will begin a pilot project in Wyoming to test the use of fuel cells, powered by biogas derived from waste water, to provide electricity to a small data center. If all goes well, the company hopes to add fuel cells to its portfolio of alternative energy sources for data centers worldwide.

“The electric grid by its very nature is an unstable beast,” Brian Janous, data center utility architect at Microsoft told CIO Journal. While the U.S. generally does a better job than the rest of the world in maintaining electric grid power availability, the system is aging and prone to outages. “A tree falls on a line in Ohio and the eastern seaboard is out,” said Janous. Microsoft also wants to make its data centers more sustainable and, in the long term, is trying to find ways to make them more efficient.

Microsoft is following in the footsteps of companies such as Pepperidge Farm, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company AT&T and Adobe that already use fuel cells to power portions of their operations. Apple and eBay have announced plans to use fuel cells as a power source in new data centers.

Microsoft, which has loads of cash, can afford to be an early adopter and experiment with new technology. The company is spending about $5.5 million on this project. But, before too long, biogas may well enter the mainstream as a source of power for companies. It makes sense for companies and their CIOs to start monitoring the technology now, especially considering that data center power management is a growing concern for corporations around the world.

In the Cheyenne, Wyoming, project, Microsoft will use a stationary fuel cell power plant from FuelCell Energy. That unit will take biogas from a nearby waste water facility directly into the fuel cell and convert it into electricity for the data center. Biogas – also called biomethane, waste gas or renewable gas – results from the anaerobic digestion of organic materials and is a versatile energy carrier. Worldwide power generation capacity from commercial biogas facilities is expected to more than double over the next decade growing to 29.5 gigawatts in 2022 from 14.5 gigawatts in 2012, according to a recent report from Pike Research.

For Sierra Nevada, reliable power is a crucial issue because if electricity were to be lost during certain phases of its brewing process, the company could lose an entire batch of beer. The company generates more than half of the energy needed on-site using both fuel cells and solar power, according to a company sustainability report. Those fuel cells use a combination of natural gas and biogas. Sierra Nevada has an on-site wastewater treatment plant where an anaerobic digester breaks down solids and organic materials in the brewery’s wastewater to recover biogas, about 75% of which is methane. That methane is then blended with natural gas and piped into the brewery’s fuel cells and boilers, according to a PG&E report.

In Microsoft’s pilot Wyoming project, the company is starting with a small plant that will generate 300 kilowatts of power. The technology can scale much larger, though. The plant at Sierra Nevada generates about 1.2 megawatts of power and FuelCell Energy customers have generated 3 megawatts of power from biogas, according to Chip Bottone, president and CEO of FuelCell Energy. AT&T is generating 17.1 megawatts of electricity at 28 AT&T sites using technology from Bloom Energy. AT&T is now Bloom Energy’s largest customer.

The idea behind fuel cell power plants is that companies are able to generate their own power on site and use the electric grid as a backup, instead of the other way around. During last summer’s power outage in India, companies such as Tata Motors and Reliance Industries were largely unaffected because they generated their own power. Five of India’s biggest electricity users generated 96% of their own power requirement, according to a Bloomberg report.

Microsoft operates globally, and in countries where the electric grid may be more prone to outages, fuel cells are a promising technology. “This is the first step in testing out this concept, we’re looking for opportunities to do this globally,” said Janous. The effort furthers Microsoft’s goal of being carbon neutral by June 2013. It’s also part of a shift in the way Microsoft is thinking about data centers. The company is moving from giant data centers concentrated in rural areas to a higher number of distributed data centers which may be smaller and located in urban areas. Data centers that are located closer to users can make, say, their Bing searches much faster. Biogas would be readily available from wastewater facilities in urban areas.

A side benefit of such a plan is that few people are likely to object to a corporate data center sitting next to a waste water facility, said Sean James, senior research program manager at Microsoft. “Water treatment plants are not in the kinds of areas where people are going to want to build apartment buildings.”

Comments (5 of 5)

Cutting edge 1800's technology for the 21st Century, LOL,... Better late than never, one may suppose Whose afraid of the carbon tax bogeyman!
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We need a multi-fuel power plant consumer version for every back yard, not just mainframes for big corporations

11:48 pm April 14, 2014

http://chaseelliott.com/wp-app.php?p=toms-sale-kids wrote:

A widower we'll call Philip, 78, is eager to preserve his wealth. He spent almost four decades working in the chemical industry, much of that time as a factory supervisor.

10:22 pm August 23, 2013

Don wrote:

From poop to power. A very solid idea that should be used at all waste treatment plants where possible.

2:10 pm July 24, 2013

danwat1234 wrote:

"The effort furthers Microsoft’s goal of being carbon neutral by June 2013. "
I very much doubt that they are anywhere near carbon neutral at this time

10:11 pm November 20, 2012

Jeff X Williams wrote:

I think this is great news as Microsoft is doing it right using truly renewable BioGas that is strategically located!
Wanted to share a couple of links I found with municipal waste water plants already up an running with fuel cell technology. 2.8MW is a lot of electricity all produced from a human waste! This solves a few problems at once in my opinion very impressive stuff. Thanks for the article!

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